Seismologist who described likely Cascadia subduction earthquake to speak here

WHAT: A free public lecture on the inevitable uncertainty of earthquakes

WHO: Hiroo Kanamori, geophysics professor at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, and one of the world’s most highly regarded seismologists

WHEN: 7 p.m. March 13, 2002

WHERE: Kane Hall, Room 120, University of Washington, Seattle campus

DETAILS: Kanamori will deliver the Mindlin Lecture just after the first anniversary of the Nisqually earthquake that shook western Washington on Feb. 28, 2001. Though it registered at magnitude 6.8, the effects of the Nisqually earthquake were relatively modest by comparison to what could happen in a quake on the Cascadia Subduction Zone, which lies off the coast of Washington, Oregon and northern California. The Cascadia zone is where the Pacific tectonic plate dives beneath the North American plate. It was Kanmori’s work in the 1980s that first quantified the size and likelihood of a future subduction zone earthquake here. His lecture will review progress made in understanding the basic physics of earthquakes that allows seismologists to forecast the overall long-term seismic activity and lets policy makers anticipate damage in order to formulate response plans.

The Mindlin Lecture Series is supported by a grant from the Mindlin Foundation to the UW Department of Earth and Space Sciences.

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For more information, contact Robert Crosson, a UW Earth and space and sciences professor, at (206) 543-6505 or crosson@ess.washington.edu